Six Metres Under Ground, a Secret Medical Facility Treats Ukraine's Soldiers Injured by Russian Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Sparse foliage hide the entryway. One sloping timber passageway leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And cabinets full of healthcare supplies, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. Within a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they weave in the air above.

This is Ukraine’s secret below-ground medical facility. The facility opened in the eighth month and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine not far from the combat zone and the urban area of a key location in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters below the earth. This is the most secure method of delivering care to our injured military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” stated the clinic’s lead doctor, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles thirty to forty patients a day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic limb trauma necessitating amputations, or serious stomach wounds. Some patients can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of enemy FPV drones, which drop grenades with deadly precision. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We see minimal gunshot wounds. It’s an era of drones and a new type of war,” the doctor said.

On one day recently, a group of three soldiers walked with difficulty into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, said an FPV blast had ripped a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He fell down. Then the Russians released a another explosive on him.” He added: “Everything in the settlement is demolished. There are UAVs all around and casualties. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit endured over a month in a wooded zone near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to get to their position was on foot. Necessary provisions came by drone: rations and drinking water. Seven days following he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with new civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of pale jeans.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been killed. We face continuous explosions.” A construction worker working in a neighboring country, he said he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to serve shortly before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as doctors placed him on a medical cot, took off a stained dressing and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his family member. “A fragment of artillery struck me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To get better. That will take a several months. After that, to return to my unit. Someone must defend our nation,” he said.

Since 2022, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, 261 health workers have been killed in almost two thousand assaults. The underground facility is built from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and granular material placed above up to the surface. It can withstand impacts from 152mm projectiles and even multiple 8kg TNT charges released by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which funded the building, plans to build 20 facilities in total. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “critically essential for saving the survival of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The company referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented after the enemy's military offensive.

Holovashchenko, said certain injured personnel had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the danger of aerial attacks. “Our facility received a pair of severely injured casualties who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's bleeding control device had been on for such an extended period there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe operations? “I’ve been healthcare for 20 years. You have to focus,” he said.

Orderlies transported the soldier through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed under a bush. He and the other military members were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The underground hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, walked toward the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open 24 hours a day,” the surgeon said. “The work is continuous.”